He protected you when it should have been me, Bálint thought bitterly. But he said nothing.
“His brother—the Captain of the Guard—wanted to put magical cuffs on me.” She turned to look at him, her voice sharp with remembered fear. “Because they thought I was dangerous. Geoff tried to stop him. He stood between us. He almost got hurt.”
Bálint’s hand moved on instinct, reaching for hers.
He didn’t speak at first, just let their fingers meet. Her palm was cool, her fingers trembling, but when he squeezed, she squeezed back.
“I’m glad he was there,” he said finally, his voice low and slightly rough. “To protect you.”
Alice looked at him, her gaze steady despite the shimmer in her eyes. She lifted her free hand. A soft glow sparked in her palm, growing into a bloom—a brilliant blue flower with petals that pulsed faintly like they held the heartbeat of the island itself.
“He showed me how to get my power back. That is wasn’t truly gone, just that the energy was different than I was used to. I wish you had been there,” she whispered, setting the blossom in his open palm. “I missed you.”
The flower lay there between them like a promise. Fragile. Beautiful. Trembling on the edge of something neither of them could name.
Bálint looked up.
Across the clearing, Leanna and Geoff stood talking in hushed voices. Geoff’s eyes—hard and wary—locked with his. A warning. A challenge. A question.
Bálint returned the stare.
Then—slowly—he bowed his head.
It was barely a movement—just the subtle dip of his chin. But it carried everything: regret, reluctant respect, and the ache of what he couldn’t undo.
But it was enough.
A silent truce.
A nod of respect between two boys who both cared about the same girl—and knew the battle wasn’t one that could be won with fists or fire.
Geoff blinked, startled. Then gave the barest nod in return before turning away.
Bálint closed his fingers around the flower, felt its pulse against his skin, and exhaled.
“I really did miss you. The kiss… it was nothing,” Alice murmured, her voice wobbling on the last line.
The kiss hadn’t been nothing to him and his dragon. The image of Geoff holding Alice was burned into his mind. He knew he was jealous. Hell, he hadn’t even kissed Alice yet! He had been waiting for the right time. It just never seemed to come.
Maybe I took her for granted, he thought, misery digging claws into his conscience.
He squeezed her fingers again, realizing she was silently waiting for his response.
“I missed you, too.”
They sat together in the quiet glow of the Elemental sun, the broken pieces hovering with uncertainty around them.
Still should have roasted the boy, his dragon grumbled.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Bálint paced along the mossy path, back and forth, wearing a trail into the spongy ground as Geoff and Leanna talked in hushed tones a few feet away. Every word they exchanged grated against his skin like sandpaper. He could practically feel Alice’s eyes tracking his every frustrated step.
“We need to find Adaline,” he said, turning to Alice with a sharpness that startled even him.
She blinked, then straightened. “I know. Tell me what happened when you came through the portal.”
Bálint stopped, his jaw tightening. “One second I was holding her,” he said, his voice thick. “And the next… her body was slipping through my hands. She just—vanished. Disappeared in this white mist like she was never there. I searched. I called. And then—” He flung his arm wide. “I got sucked into some kind of vortex. A freaking tornado of wind that dragged me through half the forest and webbed me up like some oversized snack!”
